M. Night Shyamalan: Currently discussing "The Last Airbender"

I have a feeling that her appearance changes and that it's a plot point. In the German poster, she looked totally different. Like something out of a fairy tale. And there's another spy photo that I'll try to find where she looks totally fantasy-like.

I would never consider Shyamalan a one-trick pony. His films before the Sixth Sense were the same way. At the end of Wide Awake, there's a revelation. At the end of his unproduced script Labor of Love, there's a revelation (a really beautiful one that had me in tears while I was reading). I think it's just his writing style. All the endings, with the exception of The Sixth Sense and The Village seem like normal plot progressions. They're just presented in a loud way.

About Lady in the Water not having a twist ending: It doesn't mean anything. Shyamalan himself has said that Signs didn't have a twist. He said that the climax happens within an instance giving the impression of a twist, but it isn't a twist as much as it's plot progression condensed in a single moment. Same with Unbreakable, which is simply a revelation, not a twist. The revelation is just presented that way. It's complicated I guess and if I get into explaining it more, I'll get accused of being an ass. But if you want to get technical about it. . . .

The quality or success of Lady in the Water doesn't depend on whether it has a twist or not. In fact, it will help Shyamalan's popularity at this point if he avoids using a twist. People go into his movies expecting it.

 

That was kind of my point. People expect the twist. I think if it is just a normal story its going to get some bad buzz behind it.

Maybe I'm wrong. It just seems to me that Shyamalan has been building on that ever since he became popular. Thats why the general movie going public go to see his movies. They couldn't pick Shyamalan out of a line up (or his own movies) but when they see "from the director of Sixth Sense" all they're thinking of is that its going to have a twist like a "Sixth Sense". Thats why it doesn't matter if you put from the director of X, the writer of X, the producer of X, or the key grip of X as long as they know what X was they don't care if the person really had anything to do with it or not.

They don't care if its a climax or a revelation or how ever else you want to get technical. Its a twist and they weren't expecting it so its good. No matter how stupid it is.

Either way find some better pictures of her

Edit: Saw the German poster. That definitely is a markedly different look for her. Much better. Much more intriguing as well.

 

Shyamalan no longer needs to bank on the Sixth Sense. He's a mainstream director--one of Hollywood's hottest young directors out there. For Signs' initial marketing campaign, Shyamalan requested that the studio steer clear of referencing to The Sixth Sense or even to Mel Gibson as it was an ensemble piece. Signs went on to be the sixth highest grossing film of 2002. The Village also proved that Shyamalan's name alone sells. Only an artsy film by Shyamalan could be passed on as a summer blockbuster like The Village which for what it was went on to have a lifetime gross of $256,697,520. Not too shabby.

Again with the Lady in the Water not having a twist, when I said audiences were expecting it. I meant that audiences go into the theater guessing what the twist will be and end up, as seen with The Village, disappointed. I remember seeing Signs, and throughout the film my mind would occasionally wander and guess what the twist would be. By the end, when I saw there was no real twist, I was pleasantly surprised. I think this may be the case with Lady in the Water. Let's hope so. I know I should care less, but I hate seeing one of my favorite directors get labeled a "one trick pony" simply for using twist endings.

 

I recently posted on IMdB my elaborate theory on what Lady in the Water is really about:

After reading an interview with Shyamalan upon the release of The Village, I have come to a conclusion. He mentioned that in his off-time he reads a lot. Usually there's one book that really tops them all and inspires him. According to Shyamalan, he sometimes takes an element out of the novel that inspires him, and it plants the seed for his next idea. After Signs began production, he was offered to adapt the screenplay and direct another film version Wuthering Heights. He turned down the offer, but read the novel. He fell in love with the novel and out of that, came the period romance of The Village.

For a while he was saying that he would write and direct a film adaptation of Life of Pi. Instead, he later decided to direct "a bedtime story" for his kids. Well, I think there's an element in Life of Pi that will make it's way into the book (spoilers ahead).

Throughout the novel, Pi is telling his story (much like Cleveland is in Lady in the Water) to an interviewer, and later at the end of Life of Pi, Pi Pattel tells the story of what happened to him to these two men. The men represent the company that owns the ship which sank and castawayed him on a lifeboat, and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, they don't believe his story. So Pi tells them a story that's much more realistic, and less fantastic. He let's them (and the reader) decide which one is true. What Pi says is essentially what Tim O'Brien says at the end of The Things They Carried:

By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the sh** field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain.

The story truth is sometimes more real than the actual truth. By telling an exaggerated, untrue account of what happened to him, he gives off to the reader the emotions he felt on his actual journey.

I have a strong feeling, although I could be wrong, that Lady in the Water will be to M. Night Shyamalan what Vertigo was to Hitchcock and what E.T. was to Spielberg. I think it will be his most personal film, and even a confessional. Although it may be too early in Shyamalan's career for one of those just yet.

It starts off with Cleveland telling his kids a bedtime story. My guess is that the story is his exaggerated account of something that actually happened to him in the past at the Cove apartment complex. I think that in the movie, he'll try to pass it off to his children as being real. My guess is that it is exaggerated into fantasy, like Pi's story to the two representatives in Life of Pi, or Tim O'Brien's many Vietnam stories--all exaggerated for effect. The truth is that he didn't meet a nark in the swimming pool, or whatever. But perhaps he met a woman that he fell in love with, and to share the feelings he felt, he has to fantasize the story. The experience was interesting, but telling it as it was is less interesting to his children which want to hear a bedtime story. He's telling his story in the form of a bedtime fantasy.

Just a thought. Feel free to rip it to shreds.

 

It sounds as likely as anything I've heard.

Fantastic poster.

 

As some may know, Shyamalan also wrote a hardcover children's book that will be the story that Giamatti's character reads to his children.

However, there is also another book connected to this film:


The Man Who Heard Voices : Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale (Hardcover)

Book Description
An acclaimed writer takes readers inside the world of M. Night Shyamalan?the most successful filmmaker of his generation?as he creates a new movie masterpiece

In 1999, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan exploded onto the cinema scene with his supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, which garnered major acclaim and raked in massive box office numbers around the globe. Since then, his phenomenal commercial and critical success has continued as his films?including Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village?have grossed over $1.5 billion and reinvented the thriller genre. But throughout his rise to prominence, Shyamalan has remained separate from the Hollywood system, living and working solely in his hometown area of Philadelphia, and keeping his ideas, filmmaking techniques, and business practices tightly-kept secrets.

In The Man Who Heard Voices, journalist Michael Bamberger takes readers inside Shyamalan?s world for the first time, getting total access to the man who has been called "the modern-day Hitchcock" as he prepares, creates, and test-screens his next film, Lady in the Water, which stars Paul Giamatti (star of Sideways) as a building superintendent and Bryce Howard (star of The Village) as a mysterious sea nymph. Bamberger?s intimate perspective and insightful narrative prose will bring to life Shyamalan?s creative process?from his multiple drafts and revisions of the screenplay to his on-location work with his cinematographer and crew and his relationships with the actors under his direction. The book also follows the high- stakes business decisions behind the scenes, including his agonizing decision to move from Disney to Warner Bros. for this film, his involvement in the studio?s massive marketing campaign, and the evaluation of the crucial initial test-screening of the film.

About the Author
MICHAEL BAMBERGER is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated and the author of four books, including Wonderland: A Year in the Life of an American High School and To the Linksland.

 

The plot twist at the end is becoming quite cliche, hopefully Shyamalan will break from his roots this time around. Unfortunately I'm thinking Signs where Giamatti will lose his wife and she'll return as Bryce Dallas Howard or something.

 

It's been confirmed in the AICN review that there is no plot twist. As for it becoming a cliche, it's just Shyamalan's style. He did it in his first feature Wide Awake. It's just his thing to reveal the true emotional context of the film at the end.

Anyway, I too am glad that Lady in the Water will be different.

 

Holy crap! New trailer! Looks like the rumors of this being Night's best could be true.

It's got that vintage Spielberg feel. Wow. Just wow. The cinematography is everything I thought it would be and more. It also looks a little more effects heavy for a Shyamalan film.

 

Hmmm. Different than I thought it would be. Still wanna check it out.

 

From RT:

"In other anime-ish news, M. Night Shyamalan announced officially this week his plans for The Last Airbender (which may have his name attached at the beginning), dropping the word "Avatar" (which the TV show has) to avoid confusion with James Cameron's Avatar. Shymalan is saying that The Last Airbender will be his (live action) homage to the works of animation master Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, The Princess Mononoke), who is sort of famous for not having twist endings, so that will be an obvious departure for Shyamalan right there. This fantasy saga, about four warring armies, each representing one of the elements is aiming to invade theaters on July 2nd, 2010 via Paramount/Nickelodeon, grabbing one of the summer's hottest tentpole release dates."

 

1st point: It really doesn't need to be made into a live action movie
2nd point: Shymalan? Really?
3rd point: AIR THE REST OF THE CARTOONS ALREADY

 

I trust this in Shyamalan's hands. I'm expecting something in the vein of Hero and Crouching Tiger.

And supposedly he's going for Lord of the Rings-level scope.

 

I'm looking forward to it...hopefully, he can rebound.